I received an e-mail from a reader on the topic of why Generations X and Y are not audiophiles. There are many reasons. Baby boomers practically invented audiophilia in the late 1960s and 1970s. When Boomer men went to college, the first thing they did was to buy the biggest, badest hi-fi systems they could afford. From there, the addiction for hi-fi gear and new music only grew. In the following years, the high-end companies that own most of today’s market share developed from paternalistic, one-man operations into multi-million dollar companies. This business model lasted nearly until the end of the 1990s, seemingly catering well to an affluent male audience who kept buying more and more audio and video equipment, as well as software.
Generations X and Y are a whole other story. Being the children of baby
boomers, Gen Xers grew up with MTV, Nintendo and CDs. Our attention
span is way shorter. Seeing a man walking on the moon isn’t quite as
thrilling to us as it was to our parents. For Gen Xers, life moves at a
much faster pace and we are much harder to impress with technology. For
most Gen Xers, the idea of sitting down and listening to a high-end,
two-channel system requires too much imagination and patience. That’s
not to say Gen Xers don’t appreciate a nice system or musical
experience – we do, but it takes much more for us to get off on AV as
compared to our parents. Gen Xers constantly have music in our lives,
but tend to enjoy it more while playing with their computers, driving
or as background ambience filling the needs of their ADD afflictions.
To sit down and be captivated by music, Gen Xers demand more amazing
resolution, a more encompassing sound and better songwriting.

When Generation X and now Generation Y get to university, the first
thing we buy is the biggest, baddest computer system available,
complete with a CDR, a HDTV-ready 17-plus-inch (possibly letterboxed)
screen and a super high-speed Internet connection right in the dorm
room. With MP3 downloads taking mere seconds and software/sites like
Napster opening up the entire musical back catalogues of every major
record company, Gens X and Y have access to music in ways that no one
has ever had before. With CDRs costing less than $1 and parents willing
to pick you up a 30-pack at Costco, an album that cost $16 a year ago
can now be reproduced for 79 cents. Granted, the quality of MP3, with
its lousy compression, is far less than that of a 16-bit 44.1 CD.
However, the power of MP3 downloads is the most significant development
in the entertainment industry in 40 years.

How MP3 and DVD Audio Will Change Everything – For the Better
MP3 will save high-end audio. MP3 and other future download formats are
the driving forces behind Gens X and Y learning to love more and more
music with greater access than ever before. Due to the industry’s
consolidation, American radio is far from the musical proving ground it
used to be in the ‘60s and ‘70s. New artists are rarely heard. The same
artists appeal to the same categories because the same power structure
exists. Countless sites exist to promote unsigned and never-heard-of
bands. Universal Music Group and Sony recently have announced that they
are working on sites for music downloads. Napster has all sorts of
catalogue items. The effect of all this is tremendous access to new
music. Even keeping in mind all of the hype and lawsuits over Napster
in the past few months, this has still resulted in a three percent
increase in record sales in Q1 2000 in the US. MP3 is not harming music
sales - it is helping them, just as VCRs didn’t hurt movie ticket sales.

Downloadable music is now unstoppable. In 1999, "MP3" took over for
"sex" as the number one search word on the Internet. Downloadable music
will also shatter the business model that has dominated the
now-monolithic music industry. The record industry has been based
around the concept of the album for nearly 75 years. Music publishing
royalties are paid based on how many albums are sold. Many Gen Xers
don’t want to buy the whole album. Downloadable music allows listeners
to take only what they want, which will promote better songwriting and
more cohesive records – guaranteed. Record companies will think twice
before releasing an album loaded with filler. In a break with the past,
customers will now have a choice to buy just the single on MP3.

How will record companies continue to sell new albums along with their
back catalogue albums, which make up over 80 percent of the industry’s
revenues? They will need to up the ante. There will be good money to be
made for the record companies in the not-so-distant future with
downloadable music. However, they will be slow to give in on the album
concept. MP3 and its power to change the music industry’s business
model will force the record companies to look at ways to add more value
to the physical disc, be it CD now or DVD audio later. What will they
add? Expect 5.1, 20-bit DVD audio to be played in the 50 million-plus
home theaters worldwide. How could the market grow even more? Imagine
that the big three U.S. auto makers decide to build in a $12 5.1
processor in their car audio systems. How hard would it be to switch
out an in-dash CD player for a DVD audio and/or video player? Not hard
and, most likely, not too expensive. One can quickly see that DVD audio
is going to succeed in ways that even the mighty Dolby and DTS could
not, thanks largely to the invention of MP3.

In a few short years, high-end audio will be driven by a new format,
with economic might and mainstream acceptance behind it. It will bring
ultra-high resolution music to Gens X and Y in ways that their parents
could have only dreamed of with a drag from the hookah and ‘Dark Side
of the Moon’ blasting. Downloadable music will increasingly become the
means by which people find new music over radio. DVD audio will quickly
become the way people invest in their catalogues. DVD audio, with 24/96
resolution and 5.1 surround, will have the power to capture the
attention of a generation that is jaded with technology, because DVD
audio technology brings people closer to the emotional power of music.
This is exactly why we got into high-end audio and video in the first
place.